through the trials and tribulations of life and infertility

Who is God? Jehovah-Rapha

“Who is God? Let’s look at Exodus 3:13-14 (NIV):“13 Moses said to God, Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them? 14 God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.”

Now there is a whole lot of great things about the “I AM,” but one of the great things is that he is ever present. So we need to think more about the “everywhereness” of God, that He is omnipresent everywhere all the time at the same time. Isn’t that cool? God is with you and with me at the same time even if we are on different sides of the planet. He is all knowing. There is nothing about your life that surprises God. He is never like not ready. “O no! I wasn’t expecting that! Now what are we going to do!” You don’t even surprise God. Your foolishness doesn’t surprise God! Your hang-ups, your failures don’t surprise God. He knew about them before you ever did them. God knows everything from the beginning to the end. He is all powerful; there is nothing that is impossible to God! So when the disciples were in the storm in the boat and they started to get all excited, Jesus just said: Why are you so fearful and timid, He did not tell them what He was going to do – He told them who He was – He said I AM. He does not want to tell us what He is going to do – he didn’t tell the disciples what He was going to do, He just simply said – you don’t need to worry about it because I’m here. And so when we realize that God is here then we can be peaceful because we know that if our trust is in Him – whatever needs to be done He is going to do it! “I AM THAT I AM.”

God’s character is wrapped up in His name. The first name that God gave Moses was a name that could not even be pronounced. He said that I am: “Yhwh,” which is unpronounceable because it’s got no vowels in it. You could not even say what God was. God is so far above us that you cannot even say what he is. We just know that He is wonderful, that he is amazing that his power that He is unlimited immeasurable and we can know Him and get this: He wants to come live within you! I mean how can we sit around, discouraged and full of self pity and…

You know why? Because we meditate on the wrong thing. We get too caught up on what we see and what we feel and what other people say and we think too much about our problems and we don’t think about God enough. Then you know, we think the answer is to just live in Church all the time and live in meetings and you know become a meeting junkie. Because you know we feel good there. But the point is: it gets strong enough; now listen to me, on your own between you and God that you can stay happy all the time.

All right they added some vowels to His name and it became Yahweh, then it became Yehovah, then Jehovah, which meant Lord God and then they took it even further and began to add other names to His name like Jehovah-Rapha, which is what we are going to talk about today which means the Lord my Healer. God’s name is so important that one of the 10 commandments is: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” And I have to take the time today to tell you that taking God’s name in vain is not merely saying God’s name and sticking a cuss word on it. As a matter of fact that is probably the least way that people take the Lord’s name in vain. It means to use Gods name uselessly or frivolously. And one of the ways that people do it all the time is simply by saying: “O, my God!” Now it’s interesting – of all these people on television, many who claim to not even believe in God, every time something happens they say: “O, my God!” Isn’t that stupid? “My God”, but you’ve already said you don’t want anything to do with him, now you say: “My God”, because you have a problem. It means nothing to them; it’s just become a phrase. I’m not trying to make more out of it than what it is. But I think it is more than we think it is. I just want to encourage you to realize that there is power in that Name!

Now all of these “Jehovah-“names, all are wrapped up in the name Jesus. We don’t really have to know them all today, except for education, because we have the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee has to bow, His name represents everything that God is. Jesus! Amen. You certainly never want to use that name frivolously or foolishly!

My intention is today take some time to talk to you about something that I really rarely ever spend some time to do a whole teaching on anymore, but I really feel that it is needed and that is just Jehovah-Rapha the Lord our Healer. Now 3 John 1:2 (NIV):“2Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.”

Now we know that our spirit is much more important than anything physical so the first and most important thing that we need to do is mature spiritually. We need to be men and woman of God and not just stay little childish brats all of our life, we need to grow up in God. With that being taken care of and God wants to load on the outer fruit, two of the things he wants you to have is to be prosperous, to not only have your needs met, but to have enough of an overflow to be able to bless other people and I’ll just put it as simple as I know how to – God wants us to feel good.

Exodus 15:26 (NIV):“26 He said, If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.”

You can sit here and listen until your sweet little bottom is flat, but if you don’t go out and do what you hear it is not going to do you any good nor will it change anything in your life. And actually every time you come to the church doors you need to set you mind that you are going to go in there and you are going to learn something and that you are going to go and apply it to your life.

OK, so let’s all understand one thing right now, Jesus is our physician – I thank God for medicine, I thank God for doctors, most of us would have been dead now without it, but we are making a huge mistake if we bypass God. I believe God gave medical knowledge and I believe that God gives these wonderful surgeons that can do the intricate things that they can do. I believe its God working through their hands. Now you are much more likely to have the medicine help you, to have the doctors help you if you go to God first and you say to Him: “I know that they can’t help me if you don’t help them. As a matter of fact they could do something that could kill me, if you don’t help them.” So no matter how many doctors you go to, no matter how much of anything else you do, I want to bring you back this morning to the foundation: “I am the Lord who heals you” God is your Physician, the Word of God is your medicine. Healing is for your whole being, not just physically but mentally, emotionally, financially, socially.

Proverbs 4:20-22 (NIV):“20My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. 21 Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; 22 for they are life to those who find them and health to a man’s whole body.”

So the Word of God is like medicine. One translation says that the Word is medicine, so obviously one of the things that you want to do, especially if you need healing, or if you want to take it a step further and want to walk in divine health. How many of you would like to have an upper hand in this and not just to get healed, but would like to walk in divine health and stay healthy? We need to be on the offensive and not just one the defensive. We don’t just want to get a problem, try to resist it, get another problem, and again try to resist it. We want to be more on the offensive where we are doing what needs to be done ahead of time to make sure that we are strong in an area.

So you need to learn different scriptures about healing and about the goodness of God and how God wants to meet your needs and you need to learn how to meditate on those and think on purpose about those things. Meditation means to mutter under your breath. So you might get up and say: “God you are my healer, by your stripes I’m healed, I thank you that your word is my medicine and the more I meditate on your word the better I feel. You are my energy, your strength is in me, your life is in me and every day I get better and better in every way and I believe the healing power of God is working in me right now!”